If You Really Don't Want Those Bulls Tickets . . .

February 14, 1999|By Bob Greene.

The grumbling has already begun at the United Center.

Some Bulls ticketholders are complaining that they are getting a lousy deal. They are paying top prices--for tickets they purchased before last year's championship team was broken up, before Michael Jordan retired, before it became evident that this year's Bulls will be ordinary at best. Season ticketholders were required to renew their orders well before all the bad things were done to the Bulls--and now the tickets they purchased hoping to watch Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman instead provide seats to see Andrew Lang, Cory Carr and Mark Bryant. They don't like it.

At least that is what some of them are saying. On the one hand, it's difficult to blame them if they feel they got snookered. Bulls ticket prices were raised this season--the most expensive courtside seats go for $450 each, the rest of the seats in the United Center go for $145, $85, $80, $50, $38, $28 and--the cheapest seats at the nosebleed level-- $22.

So some of the people who bought those tickets before knowing what they were paying to see feel they've been dealt a sneaky card.

As if they should be surprised that Jerry Reinsdorf was able to outsmart them.

Their complaints, while perhaps justified, are pretty unattractive. There are real injustices in this world, and this would not seem to be one of them. If you can afford $85 for a basketball ticket, you are probably well-advised to be thankful you can--to be grateful life has put you in such an enviable position.

Which is not to say the ticketholders should be jumping with glee to see the Bulls. It's their money--and if they don't like what they're seeing, they have a right not to sit through the games.

Regrettably, as everyone must admit, one of the things ticketholders were purchasing in the era just past was the cachet that came from being at the United Center. At work the next day, they could casually say, "Yeah, I was at the Bulls game last night . . ."

And heads would turn. People would want to hear about it.

This year, a kind of anti-cachet is at work. People pay for season tickets, thinking they're buying status, and what happens? They fret that their colleagues will look at them with disdain. You went where last night?

I have come up with what I believe is a flawless solution, and present it here today.

If you're a Bulls ticketholder and for whatever reason you find yourself no longer enthusiastic about going to the games, be assured that there are many, many people who would love to take your place.

I'm referring to children who have never been to a Bulls game--specifically the children who come from circumstances where such a treat seems beyond dreaming.

You used to see those children hanging around the streets near the old Chicago Stadium. Get inside to see the Bulls? Impossible. Like going to Mars.

So if you're a ticketholder for whom the thrill is gone, you should know that for those children, a trip to the United Center would be something to remember forever. If you don't want your seat, they would cherish it.

And you can even turn it into a good financial deal--you can get around resenting the prices you paid for the tickets you no longer want.

If you give your tickets to certain legitimate charities--I checked this out with tax accountants I trust--you can write 100 percent of the ticket price off your taxable income at the end of the year. That's thousands of dollars, for owners of the most expensive seats.

Two of those charities--I presented them with this idea last week--tell me they would be overjoyed to take your tickets off your hands, to give them to the children they serve. And you can claim the full tax writeoff. They are:

Everyone wins. If you don't want to go to Bulls games this season, you get the tax writeoff for your tickets. Reinsdorf and the other Bulls owners still make their money, as they were going to anyway--the season-ticket waiting list is 25,000 names long.

And children who are not jaded, who still have the capacity for excitement and joy, get to see an NBA game in the United Center, and it doesn't cost them a penny. It will be something some of them remember the rest of their lives.

This Bulls season won't be a success on many levels. But there is more than one way to salvage a season. I kind of like this one.